"Fascism should more properly be called
corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

-- Benito Mussolini.

The
early twentieth century Italians, who invented the word fascism, also had a
more descriptive term for the concept -- estato corporativo: the
corporatist state. Unfortunately for Americans, we have come to equate
fascism with its symptoms, not with its structure. The structure of fascism
is corporatism, or the corporate state. The structure of fascism is the
union, marriage, merger or fusion of corporate economic power with
governmental power. Failing to understand fascism, as the consolidation of
corporate economic and governmental power in the hands of a few, is to
completely misunderstand what fascism is. It is the consolidation of this
power that produces the demagogues and regimes we understand as fascist
ones.

While we Americans have
been trained to keenly identify the opposite of fascism, i.e., government
intrusion into and usurpation of private enterprise, we have not been
trained to identify the usurpation of government by private enterprise. Our
European cousins, on the other hand, having lived with Fascism in several
European countries during the last century, know it when they see it, and
looking over here, they are ringing the alarm bells. We need to learn how to
recognize Fascism now.

Dr. Lawrence Britt has
written an excellent article entitled “The 14 Defining Characteristics of
Fascism.” An Internet search of the number 14 coupled with the word fascism
will produce the original article as well as many annotations on each of the
14 characteristics of fascism that he describes. His article is a must read
to help get a handle on the symptoms that corporatism produces.

But even Britt’s excellent
article misses the importance of Mussolini’s point. The concept of
corporatism is number nine on Britt’s list and unfortunately titled:
“Corporate Power is Protected.” In the view of Mussolini, the concept of
corporatism should have been number one on the list and should have been
more aptly titled the “Merger of Corporate Power and State Power.” Even
Britt failed to see the merger of corporate and state power as the primary
cause of most of these other characteristics. It is only when one begins to
view fascism as the merger of corporate power and state power that it is
easy to see how most of the other thirteen characteristics Britt describes
are produced. Seen this way, these other characteristics no longer become
disjointed abstractions. Cause and effect is evident.

For example, number two on
Britt’s list is titled: “Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights.”
Individual rights and corporate rights, at the very least conflict, and
often are in downright opposition to one another. In the court system, often
individuals must sue corporations. In America, in order to protect
corporations, we have seen a steady stream of rules, decisions and laws to
protect corporations and to limit the rights of the individual by lawsuit
and other redress. These rules, decisions, and laws have always been
justified on the basis of the need for corporations to have profit in order
to exist.

Number three on Britt’s
list is the identification of scapegoats or enemies as a unifying cause.
Often the government itself becomes the scapegoat when the government is the
regulator of the corporations. Often it is lawyers or administrators who
take on the corporations. Often it is liberals who champion the rights of
individuals, or terrorists who might threaten state stability or corporate
profit. Any or all may become scapegoats for the state’s problems because
they pose problems for corporations.

Other notable
characteristics of fascism described by Britt which are directly produced by
corporatism are:

* The suppression of
organized labor (organized labor is the bane of corporations and the only
real check on corporate power other than government or the legal system);

* Supremacy of the military
(it is necessary to produce and protect corporate profits abroad and threats
from abroad);

* Cronyism and governmental
corruption (it is very beneficial to have ex-corporate employees run the
agencies or make the laws that are supposed to regulate or check
corporations);

* Fraudulent elections
(especially those where corporations run the machinery of elections and
count the votes or where judges decide their outcomes);

* Obsession with national
security (anti-corporatists are a security risk to the corporate status
quo);

* Control of the media
(propaganda works);

* Obsession with crime and
punishment (anti-corporatists belong in jail); and

* Disdain for intellectuals
and the arts (these people see corporatism for what it is and are highly
individualistic).

All of these
characteristics have a fairly obvious corporate component to them or produce
a fairly obvious corporate benefit. Even Britt’s last two characteristics,
the merger of state with the dominant religion and rampant suppression of
divorce, abortion and homosexuality produce at least some indirect corporate
benefit.

In sum, it’s the corporate
state, stupid.

As I have pondered what
could be done about America’s steady march toward the fascist state, I also
have pondered what can be done internally to stop it. The Germans couldn’t
seem to do it. The Italians couldn’t seem to do it. The only lesson from
recent history where an indigenous people seemed to have uncoupled the
merger of economic power with governmental power is the French Revolution.
The soft underbelly of consolidated economic power is that the power resides
in the hands of a few. Cut off the money supply of the few and the merger
between economic power and government becomes unglued. The French
systematically took out their aristocracy one by one. It was ugly; the
French couldn’t seem to figure out when there had been enough bloodletting
to solve the problem.

The thought of an American
twenty-first century French Revolution is ugly. But the thought of an
American twenty-first century fascist state is far uglier. It would be a
supreme irony that the state most responsible for stopping worldwide fascism
would become fascist 60 years later. But far worse than this irony is the
reality that an American fascist state with America’s power could make Nazi
Germany look like a tiny blip on the radar screen of history.

For some years now we have
lived with the Faustian bargain of the corporation. Large corporations are
necessary to achieve those governmental and social necessities that small
enterprises are incapable of providing. The checks on corporate power have
always been fragile. Left unchecked, the huge economic power of corporations
corrupts absolutely. Most of the checks are badly eroded. Is there still
time to get the checks back in balance? Or will we be left with two
unthinkable options?